The Contortions

Poetry. "This incorrigible book of poems with its Rorschach tests and National Inquirer soap opera rifts puts readers through the lewd twists and tender struggles of pulling our heads out. Part prayer and part acrid white of pulverized meds, THE CONTORTIONS exposes our fearholes, our limited tenderest tongues, and our raw victual hearts. Wanting to touch to a terrible extent, Mauro's uncanny sound work and edgy wit will change your mind and dilate the rest of you"--Dana Teen Lomax. "Mauro's book of brain science encourages language to pop and pulse down the synaptic hallways of our culture. From Freudian free association to soap opera summaries, from pangrammic mnemonics to Rimbaud, these poems are not afraid to breach etiquette and 'dis-remember' the habits of words. Mauro transmits the fantastical double life of language--what it once was and what it now (happily) can be--with visual and sonic nerve" -- Jena Osman.

Nicole Mauro has published poems and criticism in numerous journals. Her chapbooks include Odes (Sardines, 2003), Dispatch (a collaboration with Marci Nelligan, Dusie, 2006), The Contortions (Dusie, 2007) and Tax-Dollar Super-Sonnet (Pendergast Press, 2009). She has also co-edited an interdisciplinary book about sidewalks titled INTERSECTION: Sidewalks and Public Space (with Marci Nelligan, ChainArts, 2008), the first in the ChainLinks book series. She was born and raised in San Mateo County, California, where she now lives with her husband, Patrick, and their daughters Nina and Faye. She teaches rhetoric and writing at the University of San Francisco.